Author(s)

Wulf Gaertner

Department of Economics, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany.

At first sight, the choice of a socially best economic policy and the choice of an optimal engineering design seem to be quite separate issues. A closer look, however, shows that both approaches which aim at generating a (set of) best alternative(s) have much in common. We describe and characterize axiomatically an aggregation method that uses a set of evaluations that are arranged on a common scale. This scale establishes a common language, so to speak, which conforms to the criteria that are deemed relevant in order to compare various design options. Two conditions are able to characterize the proposed aggregation mechanism. One is a simple dominance requirement, and the other called cancellation independence makes use of the fact that for any pair of objects, rank differences of opposite sign can be reduced without changing the aggregate outcome of the ranking procedure. The proposed method has its origin in voting theory but may have the potential to prove useful in engineering design as well.

Design Evaluation, Aggregation Procedures, Multi-Attribute Decision Making, Grading Schemes

Gaertner, W. (2016) Aggregating Qualitative Verdicts: From Social Choice to Engineering Design. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 6, 319-326. doi: 10.4236/ojapps.2016.65032.